It was late May, and I was heading to Spanish class when Rob Callahan stopped me in the hall. “You feeling okay, Cal?”
“No, not really.”
Rob stepped forward, feeling my forehead. “You’re burning up. You should head to the clinic.”
“But I have a game tonight.”
He smiled, understandingly. “It’s only one game.”
I nodded, descended the stairs, and went to the school nurse. She tried the numbers on my call list, but nobody felt like answering the phone. My mom probably had appointments and would call back, but while the nurse was on the phone, I made a chunky deposit into one of those kidney-shaped pans.
With that kind of evidence stinking up her office, she let me go. I drove home quickly, arriving at the seven-bedroom monstrosity with a “For Sale” sign in the front yard. When my parents told us, ‘We’re putting the house on the market. We don’t need something so big,’ it was only a partial truth.
The rest of the truth was they hadn’t paid the mortgage for months, and the house just sat there, waiting for someone to buy it. Every month people walked through it, but no takers. They had their reasons: The yard is too big; we need a bigger kitchen; we don’t like the tile; we want more bedrooms; we want fewer bedrooms. The list went on, and the price kept dropping—until it listed for the last time as a short sale. The asking price was a full 250K less than my parents built the house ten years prior.
It was a sign of the times, and even though I knew my life was going to change, I was not ready to accept it. I refused to see what my life had become. Inside, I was still seven, spending the first night in my brand new bedroom, gazing up at the vaulted ceiling, and thinking we had it all.
And we did have it all.
But that day, the day I got sick, really ended it.
I parked in the garage—the last of the four stalls, and noticed that my dad was home. Nothing unusual about that: For two years, his job was finding another job. He lived on his computer, exhausting every connection on his social networks. He went on interview after interview, traveling all over in hopes of new employment. Nothing panned out, and my mom just started working harder, longer hours. And he became a stay-at-home dad but the kind that didn’t cook or do housework, just the kind that lounged around the house during the quiet hours of the day.
I rushed in and found the nearest toilet, and then, with legs like lead, I trudged over to my bathroom. I brushed my teeth, and then I heard the faint sound of laughter, a woman’s laugh, and I figured my mom was home now. I followed the sound, leading me across the house toward the guest suite. I couldn’t hear the laughter anymore, just music, soft jazzy music.
“Mom?” I said as I swung open the door.
But it wasn’t my mom. It was another woman—one who lived two houses down and who had been my mother’s closest friend for ten years—and she lay in bed with my dad. I turned, covered my mouth, but never made it to the bathroom. I felt sick, physically and mentally, and rushed into my bedroom. I didn’t even think twice about what to do next: I called my mom and told her everything.
After that day, I morphed—from a daughter to a confidante, but I wasn’t ready to give up the first role and take on the other. I was grieving too, and I was hurt, but I had to be there for her—and not think about myself. I turned into a vault and kept my emotions inside, not telling anyone how I felt.
My mother asked my father to move out, and then she filed for divorce. Apparently, this wasn’t his first affair, but with me finding out this time, my mom ran out of forgiveness. My mom, however, increased her visits to the therapist and began working on herself. I began a new life of independence, fending for myself, and needing my friends even more. Eventually, I needed more than just my friends. I started dating more and found comfort in Mike’s arms.
My childhood home sold at the close of my junior year, and my mom found a crappy apartment, a temporary housing solution, for us. Landon headed to Tennessee, taking a summer job, and moved in with our older brother, Grant. All of us tried to continue on, but our family never felt the same. We never felt that close again.
*****
The Secrets We Keep Page 25